


Letters from the Front

by plalligator



Category: Oxford Time Travel Universe - Connie Willis
Genre: Gen, Historical, The Blitz, Time Travel, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-19
Updated: 2012-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-03 03:12:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plalligator/pseuds/plalligator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two ships pass in the night (or, unsent love letters, of a sort.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letters from the Front

**Author's Note:**

> Ridiculous self-indulgence of my ridiculous feelings about these books. Note that I am not British and also Britishism failures are due to that. For reference, April 20, 1941 is the day after Polly and Mr. Dunworthy go back to Oxford.

_Winter, 1941_  
  
“Mum!”  
  
 _“Mum!”_  
  
Eileen sits up, jolted out of an uneasy and restless sleep. Oh, no. She should have known better than to doze off while Alf and Binnie were still awake to cause mayhem, especially with all of Notting Hill Gate at their mercy.  
  
“Yes, what is it?” she says, as patiently as she can, as they come careening up to her.  
  
“Mum, Alf’s tearing up your newspaper!” says Binnie promptly, shooting a glare at Alf.  
  
“I _ain’t_ ,” retorts Alf automatically, elbowing Binnie in the ribs. “I only wanted to look at the _war_ news!” Binnie’s glare increases in magnitude, and she brandishes a sheet of torn newspaper in Eileen’s direction as evidence.  
  
“You were _so_ \-- ” starts Binnie, before Eileen cuts her off.  
  
“Alf,” she says firmly, taking the newspaper from Binnie, “I don’t care if you want to look at the war news, don’t tear up my newspaper, please. Binnie--”  
  
“My name’s _V’ronica_!”  
  
“ _Veronica_ , stop antagonizing your brother. Now both of you need to sit down and go to sleep .”  
  
Binnie sullenly scuffs at the ground with her shoe. She’ll need new ones soon, Eileen notices. Theses are much too small, the soles are nearly worn through, and winter is in the early stages already. Oh, dear. Maybe Miss Laburnum would be able to get some.  
  
“The all clear will be going soon,” Binnie mutters.  
  
“No, it won’t. It’s only nearly eleven. We’ve plenty of time, and I’ll wake you up when it goes,” says Eileen, making room for them on the blanket she’s spread out on the chilly station floor. “Now sit.”  
  
They do sit, and when they finally even fall asleep an hour later, Eileen opens the paper, careful with the damaged pages.  
  
It’s not the war news she’s looking at.  
  
::  
  
Eileen sometimes feels surrounded by ghosts. After all, of the the three people she loves most dearly in the entire world, (besides Alf and Binnie, that is,) the vicar is on the front lines, Polly is alive-- alive, thank god -- and safely home one hundred and twenty years from now, and Mike is at Fortitude South.  
  
She thinks about Mike a lot.  
  
 _(He was--will be--killed by a V1 in October 1944. In less than three years. But now, right now, he’s still alive, writing newspaper articles to lead Colin to them, to Polly and Mr. Dunworthy. And winning the war.  
  
And he doesn’t know that Polly and Mr. Dunworthy have been home safe for months already, that Colin gets them out before their deadlines, and that we haven’t wrecked the continuum after all. He can’t know, because he didn’t. Instead he worked--will work--till long after Polly’s deadline and then had to be in the newspaper office in Croyden so Colin could find him just in time, so Colin could come back and save them three months ago.)_  
  
It still hurts.  
  
Oh, _Mike._  
  
::  
  
 _August, 1944_  
  
It’s not that Ernest is a maudlin drunk, it’s just that. It’s just that his head is spinning, so he puts it down on the table, something that is a lot more difficult than it seems, apparently. His skull makes contact with a dull ‘thunk’ and colors swim before his eyes.  
  
“Ow,” he says blearily, resting his forehead on polished bar-top wood. “That hurt.”  
  
“I bet it did, old chap,” says Cess--who doesn’t seem to be having problems with his head--blithely. “You sure you haven’t had too much to drink?”  
  
Ernest’s not sure at all, really. He’s just sure that he feels numb and his head is spinning and--oh. He attempts to lift his head off the table but can’t seem to manage it, and therefore lets it fall again.  
  
“I’ve got to finish my newspaper articles,” he says vaguely in Cess’ direction. “For tomorrow.” And then realizes that no, the newspaper articles don’t matter anymore. Polly’s deadline was December of ‘43. “No,” he says, “no, she’s dead already. It doesn’t matter. She’s dead and I’m dead and--” his voice breaks. _“ And Eileen’s all by herself. All alone, stuck in the past. On her first assignment, too. What a bloody rotten first assignment, too. Poor Eileen.”_  
  
Cess peers at him, and Ernest tries to tell him he has two faces, but somehow it just comes out as mumbling.  
  
“I say,” says Cess. “We’d better get you to bed, Worthing. You don’t look so well.” And he heaves Ernest up, pulling Ernest’s arm over his shoulders. “Come on, Worthing. Don’t pass out on me now, we’ve got to do all those incident reports in the morning, remember?”  
  
Reports, newspaper articles...something about letters? Ah, letters. He thought about trying to write letters to Polly and Eileen after he talked to Jonathon and Commander Harold, but...  
  
“It’s no use,” he tells Cess. “What would I say? She’s already dead. She’s dead. She won’t get the letter. Maybe--maybe I ought to just give up. She’s alone, and it’s all my fault. I tried to save them, but it didn’t work. The articles don’t matter because she’s dead. God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wanted to save them so much...so much...”  
  
 _“Dear Eileen, dear Polly, I’m so sorry, everything’s gone wrong and I can’t fix it. I never wanted to leave you, never.”_  
  
::  
  
 _April 20, 1941_  
  
The house, when she and Alf and Binnie stop off there coming back from the tube station, seems so strange and empty without Polly and Mr. Dunworthy in it, and Eileen feels strange and light without the constant worry over deadlines or the continuum or retrieval teams.  
  
Everything came out all right in the end. It’s all...over.  
  
Only just the war to worry about now, just HEs and air raids and rationing and driving an ambulance and UXBs and, later, the V1 and V2 attacks.  
  
 _What a relief._  
  
::  
  
She picks up a paper at the tube station as she reports for the day and is half-skimming it for any war news--she hasn’t been prepped on this part of the war, after all. She was supposed to be back in Oxford two _years_ ago, and without Polly here, she’d better pay attention.  
  
Then something catches her eye.  
  
 _“This week, Miss Eileen Ward, Mr. James Dunworthy, and Mr. Colin Temple showed great heroism when they helped rescue Miss Mary Hill from where she was trapped under the rubble of a bombed-out building. Mr. Dunworthy and Mr. Temple heard the sound of Miss Hill’s struggles to escape as they were passing, and they, on being unable to find an ARP warden or rescue squad were joined by Miss Ward and were able to pull Miss Hill out themselves.”_  
  
Eileen stops for a moment, and laughs a little. Mary Hill...Polly Churchill...it’s obvious Mike wrote this. Articles like this are how he got word to Colin of where they were. He’s still...still...  
  
“Like ships passing in the night,” she says, and then, to her dismay, bursts into tears, because he’s gone, and Polly’s gone, and she _loved_ them.  
  
::  
  
 _Winter 1941_  
  
Eileen looks up as a distant, piercing note cuts through the chilly air. The all clear. She folds up her newspaper, shakes Alf and Binnie awake and reclaims her green coat, meticulously brushing off the dirt and dust. Giving in to Alf’s nagging, she finally hands him the paper.  
  
“Why’re there bits all circled in red pen?” Alf demands, holding the paper sideways as if he can somehow determine the answer. “They’re not anything interesting about UXBs and Stukas or _anything_. Just boring old personals and things.”  
  
“Never you mind,” says Eileen, pulling them along up the escalators and out of the station. She’s got to get them back to the house, and then make sure they actually get to school instead of running off to an incident somewhere to heckle ARP wardens. “ _Don’t_ do anything to it, Alf, I want it back later.”  
  
::  
  
When she has any time, she cuts out all the articles she can find, all the ones that mention a Polly or an Eileen or a Ward or a Sebastian or a Dunworthy...  
  
All of them.  
  
::  
  
 _“Darling Davy, things are all right here. The children and I miss you dearly, and wish very much you could come home. Please don’t worry, it’ll all come out right in the end. All my love, E.”  
\--Personal ad placed in the Times; December 24, 1941. _


End file.
